Fitness health centre

The teenage guy’s guide to gaining muscle

The toned torsos, six-packs and rippling biceps of sports stars and celebrities can’t do much for the body image of the average teenage boy, but if you’re a guy in your teens, you have body-building advantages they would love to have.

During your teenage years, you’re in a phase of your life when your body wants to grow. You’re churning out hormones that are specially designed to help you get bigger. And, right now, you may be able to take in a huge amount of food and use it to build a strong body.

However, it's easy to make mistakes in your quest for muscle. Here's how to avoid those pitfalls:

Do these five things now

Following these steps will help you give your muscles the exercise and the fuel they need for getting bigger.

1. Get a checkup

If you’re new to exercise or you have any health issues, especially heart problems or conditions that affect your muscles or joints, get a once-over by your GP before you start a muscle-building programme.

2. Skip the shortcuts

As you’re starting on your path to bigger muscles, focus on the basics.

Don’t even think about taking anabolic steroids. They are a Class C drug, and are illegal to own unless with a medical prescription. They make the body over-produce testosterone, so increasing muscle size and strength. Not only are they illegal, they can give you mood swings, moobs and small testicles and, according to the NHS, could make you infertile.

During puberty, your body naturally pumps out testosterone. This hormone encourages your muscles to grow.

Personal trainer and ex-professional footballer, Ian McCaldon says: "When building muscle, there are no shortcuts. Just long, hard consistent hours in the gym. It's like learning a language. You don't just build a vocabulary in one week; it takes months and years to really build and understand the language.

"Building muscle is the same; it takes time for that muscle to build and, along the way, you'll start to understand your body and your character."

3. Build a solid programme

When you're starting out, avoid just trying out bits and pieces from different weight-lifting programmes you see in magazines.

Ian says: "Working to a well thought out programme is vital.  You need to know you're working all the right muscle groups proportionately.

"It’s no good having a big upper body and skinny legs - looking like a carrot!"

At first take it steadily. Build a basic core programme that includes bench presses (for your chest), squats (legs), deadlifts (legs and back) and shoulder presses (shoulders and upper arms).

Sports nutrionist Gavin Allinson says: "You can do resistance training from an early age. You can practice the movement patterns, like bench press, squat and deadlift.

"There’s a lot of supervision if it’s done correctly," he says, "so parents shouldn’t be over concerned about injury."